MANCHESTER, N.H. - Thomas Fortney’s career was one-tenth of a second shy of its expiration date. That’s when he game himself a chance to extend his shelf life.

The New Hampshire senior forward scored the game-tying goal with 0.1 seconds remaining in regulation, and junior forward Peter LeBlanc ended the game 45 seconds into overtime to give the third-seeded Wildcats a 6-5 victory against second-seeded North Dakota in the Northeast Regional semifinals Saturday afternoon at Verizon Wireless Arena.

“There’s nothing like this,” said UNH coach Dick Umile, who snapped his four-game losing streak in the NCAA tournament. “You’ll take this one to the grave. It’s unbelievable.”

Fortney won a face-off against Sioux senior Ryan Duncan back to senior defenseman Kevin Kapstad in the North Dakota zone with 5.7 seconds remaining. Kapstad worked the puck to sophomore forward Mike Sislo above the left point, and Sislo fired a shot off the back boards. The puck squirted to the right of the crease to senior forward Jerry Pollastrone, who shuffled the puck to Fortney in the front of the crease, where he finished the job in the most dramatic fashion possible.

“It wasn’t a pretty goal, but that’s the way it happens if you want to get it to the net,” said Fortney, who scored his third goal of the season and his eleventh in 151 career games. “I first checked to see if there was any time left, and when I saw there was a little time left on the clock, guys were going crazy. It was pretty exciting.”

LeBlanc, who was initially credited with the game-tying goal, left no doubt about the winner in overtime. He jumped on the ice during a line change, skated into the slot and fired a one-timer off a pass from Pollastrone (who had a goal and two assists in the game) into the back of the net. LeBlanc said he was actually surprised he scored because he thought he broke his stick on the shot.

“Honestly, I’ve never been so pumped up in my life,” said LeBlanc, whose first goal of the game put the Wildcats ahead, 3-2, at 7:21 of the second period. “I didn’t even know what to do.”

But UNH quickly coughed up that 3-2 lead and fell behind, 4-3, heading into the second intermission.  When junior forward Chris VandeVelde gave the Fighting Sioux a 5-3 lead at 9:08 of the third period, it looked like another NCAA tournament of misfortune for the Wildcats.

Since dropping the 2003 title game in Buffalo to Minnesota, UNH had gone 1-6 in the national tournament  and was winless in its last three first-round contests. Even further, the Wildcats’ demise has often been in the third period, so Saturday’s turnaround served as a double exorcism of recent demons.

It was done by a roster of players without a single NCAA tournament victory under their belts, and the heroes entered the regional semifinal without a single point in their NCAA tourney histories. Fortney was held scoreless in his first three games, and LeBlanc in two.

“For a second there, things weren’t looking good,” Fortney said. “It was a feeling of a little déjà vu.”

But UNH senior forward Greg Collins, who played a tremendous game, tipped freshman defenseman Damon Kipp’s shot into the net nine minutes into the third period to cut the margin to 5-4 and set the stage for the Miracle in Manchester. 

“We’re going to have to settle down,” LeBlanc said, “if we want to sleep tonight.”

LESSON LEARNED

The folks at Air Force and Miami should be on the lookout for thank-you cards from Boston University coach Jack Parker and the rest of his Terriers. After both No. 4 seeds knocked off a pair of top seeds — Michigan and Denver, respectively — during Friday’s first round, Parker was given a lay-up for part of his motivational speech, and it clearly hit home during the Terriers’ 8-3 win against fourth-seeded Ohio State in the Northeast Regional semifinal.

Parker said he first brought it up during the team’s meeting Friday night, even though he knew they were already aware of what had gone down in the early hours of the tournament.

“We had a quick snack last night at 10 o’clock,” Parker said. “I brought that up. I knew Michigan had lost, and I knew how they had lost. It sounds like … they really outplayed them, but the bottom line is they didn’t get it done. The best team won. The reason is they were given a lot of opportunities, but they weren’t making sure. They weren’t driving. They weren’t getting gritty goals. They weren’t getting dirty goals. We have a tendency to want to play pretty goal, pretty goal, pretty goal and not get in people’s faces. I was trying to get that across.”

Pretty goal, dirty goal, whatever. BU got plenty of each against the Buckeyes and began its steamrolling session with three tallies in a span of 4:27 in the first period. The Terriers continued the onslaught by building a 6-0 advantage with senior forward Jason Lawrence’s second goal at 13:34 of the second before the Terriers adding a pair of empty-netters later in the third.

“That’s a little bit of an eye opener when you see two No. 1 seeds go down like that,” Lawrence said. “It just makes people wake up, refocus more and know you have to bring your ‘A’ game because anybody can beat anybody in a one-game elimination tournament.”

SEEN AND HEARD AT THE VERIZON WIRELESS ARENA

• North Dakota freshman goalie Brad Eidsness began skating to the bench and left the net open after senior forward Matt Watkins’ hooking penalty at 2:03 of the first period. UNH was never able to gain enough control of the puck to put any pressure on a potential freebie.

• The UNH fans greatly outnumbered the North Dakota fans, but the building was still barely more than half full (announced attendance was 6,883 compared to a capacity crowd of 10,019) and there wasn’t much jump for much of the afternoon. It was so quiet at times you could hear UNH coach Dick Umile’s whistling from the bench where the media was located on the other side of the building up in the balcony.

• There might be more people following that creepy guy in those Verizon network commercials than there were in the Verizon Wireless Arena.

(I’ll be here all week.)

• North Dakota’s special teams had a difficult first period, exemplified when the Sioux couldn’t get a shot on net during a 5-on-3 when a UNH player was also skating without a stick.

• The PA announcer told the crowd to get loud before the first game because they were “live on ESPN.” That ended up being a bit of a miscalculation, though, because the Virginia-Maryland college lacrosse game that began at noon went into seven overtimes. This caused even more furor from Fighting Sioux fans trying to watch on TV because lacrosse is about as popular in North Dakota as hockey is in Mexico.

ESPNU joined the hockey game midway through the second period, but there were still media timeouts being taken prior to that, so it must have been on somewhere.

OSU State's Peter Boyd tries to elude Boston University defenseman Colby Cohen and gain control of the puck.

• Credit a save to UNH junior defenseman Nick Krates during a North Dakota power play in the second period. Krates jumped in front of a shot to secure an open net that was vacated by Brian Foster, who was trying to regain position after giving up a fat rebound.

• This is the eighth consecutive trip to the NCAA tournament for UNH and the seventh in a row for North Dakota, the second- and third-longest active streaks, respectively. However, these teams hadn’t played in the national tourney prior to Saturday.

• Boston University coach Jack Parker slapped Umile’s hand and gave him a hug a few minutes before the Terriers took the ice for the second game.

• North Dakota coach Dave Hakstol on senior forward Ryan Duncan’s last game: “He’s a young man that is going to go down as one of the better players in the history of our program.”

• NoDak junior forward Chris VandeVelde had two even-strength goals but wound up a minus-two in the game. He was on the ice during UNH’s last three goals.

• BU had the only group resembling a student section all day.

• The arena sound crew had to play some house music to drown out the boos from the crowd when the start of the third period of the second game was delayed until the TV broadcast returned from a commercial break.

• Parker took a jab in the postgame press conference at the Manchester Union Leader, which had a story in Friday’s paper about Umile’s record in the NCAA tournament and indicated a lot of people believe he should be fired. Parker noted that he hasn’t been to the Frozen Four in more than a decade before saying, “I’m glad I don’t coach at UNH. I might be fired by now.”

• Ohio State coach John Markell on pulling goalie Cal Heeter with 6:45 to play, allowing BU to score two empty-net goals the rest of the way: “Never give up. We were losing 6-2 against Miami in the final game of the year, and we had to get home ice. We scored three goals. It was 6-5 with one minute left. Lake Superior is probably the team that does it the most, but it puts the fear of the Lord into you sometimes. If you can get one and all of a sudden you’re one goal down … you never know, but why not?”

PLUSSES AND MINUSES

Hockey East had a big day in Manchester, thereby guaranteeing it would send at least one member school into the Frozen Four for the fourth consecutive year. Not only did UNH and BU win, but both teams hung a half-dozen goals on their opponents as well.

The referees needed to review a play with 5.7 seconds remaining of the North Dakota-New Hampshire game to determine the location of the face-off. It’s obviously an important call, but this seems like an example of the officials relying too heavily on the replay technology.

Boston University fans began cheering when it was announced that Northeastern fell to Cornell, 3-2. There’s obviously a bit of a rivalry there, but a Northeastern victory would have been better for Hockey East. In case you’re wondering, this note would not have been written if it were Boston College instead of Northeastern.

INCH’s THREE STARS OF THE NIGHT

3. Matt Gilroy, Boston University. The Hobey Baker semifinalist had four assists to give him 28 for the season.

2. Peter LeBlanc, New Hampshire. On the ice for UNH’s last five goals and was a plus-four in the game.

1. Thomas Fortney, New Hampshire. He’s got pretty good timing.

WHAT’S NEXT

Boston University and New Hampshire will meet Sunday at 5 p.m. EDT in the Northeast Regional final. BU won the season series, 2-1-0, including each of the last two games. UNH is 2-1 against BU in the NCAA tournament.